Well, I'm from Essex, UK.
My particular part of Essex is one of the wealthiest regions in the country. I believe it has the highest ratio (or, one of) of cars per household. It's in the South East of England, which has the highest average house price in the country. Unemployment in my constituency is 1.6%... against the national average of around 8(?)% (also extremely resistant to public sector cuts, most of jobs come from private business). On a demographic note, my constituency is actually 98% white, around 0.7% Asian, and 0.4% black.
Essex has a bit of reputation for being full of your Paris Hilton-esque women, and "Jack-the-Lad" men... this actually has a lot of grounding in reality - lots of silly people get their hands on lots of money.
Over the past few years, our highstreets have changed. A lot. In the UK, the "highstreet" is traditionally the place where people do their shopping, this was the case until a few years ago. Our highstreets are now mainly focused on services such as hair dressers, tanning salons, as well as bars, clubs, and restaurants. Shopping has moved to slightly out-of-town retail parks. In many ways, it's all much more Americanized - with the traditional British highstreet replaced with a "Downtown" and retail parks.
Crime rates are also way lower than the national average in my constituency... my town actually closed down the local police station over a decade ago, as there was pretty much no need for it.
The natural geography is okay. I live alongside a river, and next to a woods... there are various wooded areas, parks, greens scattered throughout the country. My constituency actually has 2 woodlands, and a nature reserve (as well as two castle ruins! Fun, fun, fun). Public transport is average, but it's great for pedestrian travel... not so well designed for cyclists. Congestion can also be a major issue at peak times.
London is a 30 minute train ride away, and the seaside is a 15 minute train ride, or 40 minute drive.
All in all, it's a great place to live. Extremely high standard of living, economically very well developed, and should stand up well against the Government's austerity measures. It's pretty much got something for everybody - the woodlands are great for kids to play in, also for walks. The river is used for water sports, also has a pub and a bistro along side it... and a massive great outdoor antiquing complex, if you're into that kind of thing. Literally thousands of bars, pubs, and nightclubs. Well developed shopping areas. Casinos, arcades, funparks and beaches by the seaside. An obscene number of golf courses, too. One of the local woodlands, and the castle in and around it, is actually being used for the mountain biking event in the 2012 Olympics. Easy transport links straight into London. You feel extremely safe, and you trust the community - we've had hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds worth of building materials out of the front of our house for the past couple of months, with not a single worry about it being stolen - we seldom shut the side gates to the house, or lock the front door, either. I've been known, on ocassion, to actually go to bed and leave both the front and back doors of the house not just unlocked... but wide open.
Oh, and it's one of the dryest areas in the country, too... though that's not saying much.
All-in-all, it's a very nice place to live, and to grow up and old in.
EDIT: Also, we have two major cinemas - one with 16 screens, another with 12. There was a TV show based on living in Essex called "The Only Way Is Essex", they produced a music video (warning: tacky)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBS14oSrfew
